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Film Showing and Discussion: Make Hummus Not War

Date: Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Time: 6:30 pm

Location: Belk Library -- Room 114

Admission: Free, open to the public

Make Hummus Not War is a humorous film journey though the hummus bars and kitchens of Beirut, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and New York. Along the way the filmmaker encounters Palestinian and Israeli hummus cooks, chickpea farmers, political leaders, activists, Jewish settlers, and others for whom hummus is a near religious obsession.

The film will be introduced by Dr. Curt Ryan, who will also lead discussion on peace and cultural commonalities in the Middle East following the film. Dr. Ryan is associate professor of political science at Appalachian State, a scholar of Middle Eastern politics, and author of the books Inter-Arab Alliances: Regime Security and Jordanian Foreign Policy and Jordan in Transition: From Hussein to Abdullah.

The event is presented by ASU Library in conjunction with the ASU Humanities Council with grant funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities- NEH Bridging Cultures, Muslim Journeys grant and the Bivens Fund for Library Excellence. This is the third in a series of programs that compose the 2013 Muslim Journeys Program.

More description of the film: Could a regional love of hummus be the recipe for peace in the Middle East? This was the question on director Trevor Graham's mind when he set out to film Make Hummus Not War, a documentary about the Middle Eastern conflict you don't see on the nightly news.

One of the oldest-known prepared foods in human history, hummus is claimed by multiple Middle Eastern nationalities. So when Trevor Graham, a self-described hummus tragic, learned of a 2008 Lebanese plan to sue Israel for acting as if it had proprietary rights over the dish, he was intrigued and hungry for more. With Israel, Lebanon and Palestine fighting once again - over who 'owns' the hummus heritage - he set off on a personal journey into a colorful culinary history.

“Hummus and chickpeas are a symbol of our common humanity. I want this movie to say ‘We have more in common than divides us.’” Trevor Graham [filmmaker]